The invention is based on a cylinder as including a flow control valve for controlling fluid flow between an upper chamber and a lower chamber.
A cylinder with two work chambers and a flow connection connecting the two work chambers is already known. In the course of the flow connection, there is a throttle cross section the free cross-sectional area of which is variable with the aid of an electromagnetically actuatable control slide.
If the control slide is in an approximately middle position, for instance, and if the quantity of pressure fluid flowing through it per unit of time varies, then a flow force acting upon the control slide varies as well. The quantity of pressure fluid flowing through per unit of time will hereinafter be called the pressure fluid flow. At a constant control slide position, the pressure fluid flow depends on a pressure difference between the pressures in the two work chambers.
European Patent Applications A1 0 285 909 and A1 0 288 736 show a cylinder with a control slide that is embodied such that the flow forces acting upon the control slide, although small, are nevertheless still present. Despite a clever embodiment of the control slide, the pressure fluid flow produces a flow force urging the control slide in the closing direction. As a result, depending on the magnitude of the pressure fluid flow, the control slide tends to reduce the throttle cross-sectional area somewhat. In the aforementioned applications, this can be compensated for electrically with the aid of a control circuit containing a position transducer.